


Memories

by unknownlifeform



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Memories, Other characters get mentioned, Scars, celeborn is there but he's not the focus, warnings for mentions of death and amputation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24354307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknownlifeform/pseuds/unknownlifeform
Summary: The Helcaraxe left its marks on Galadriel, ones that she usually keeps well hidden. Some days, however, she ends up remembering all that the ice did. She doesn't really wish to
Relationships: Celeborn/Galadriel | Artanis
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	Memories

**Author's Note:**

> It's been *checks account* more than a month since the last time I posted some Finwean angst, better rectify that

She had always been renown for her beauty. Ever since the days when she had still been called Artanis, Galadriel’s looks had sparked admiration, and love, and envy, in all those who gazed upon her. How it had pleased her, in the most vain and prideful days of her youth, to have all of Valinor falling over and marveling at her.

She was wiser, now. She was still proud of her beauty, but she did not flaunt it as she had once had. It was not so important, after all. She had learnt well that many evil things could mask themselves in beautiful disguises, and much of what was good in Middle Earth came in unexpected and unremarkable shapes.

And yet. Even now, centuries and Ages after the Sun rose, Galadriel loathed to drop that glamour, the only one she had ever worn.

In her heart, she knew it was not fear of ugliness that stopped her. If she let herself be a little more vain, she would also say even without that little spell she would still be considered more beautiful than most.

She knew there was a wound there, something deep and jagged and never truly healed. The glamour was a balm that soothed it and chased away those clear as ice memories that always came to her when she forced herself to see.

Part of her, however, the more prideful Galadriel, still scoffed, and mocked her, for being so childishly afraid to gaze upon her own face. She was Galadriel of Lothlórien, had been through all the worst of the history of the world and survived, and kept going, and now she ruled this land that left all travelers awed and amazed. She should not hide like this from things that had happened long before most of her people had even been born.

If only the wounds of the spirit could heal at one’s will.

She stood in her room, naked in front of a mirror. Her body did not displease her, and yet she hesitated to drop the last layer that she still wore.

Her magic retreated slowly into her being. Her face stared back at her, the same as it had been before, except for the discolored patches that now decorated it. She had carried them for most of her life, now, but their sight was one she had never truly gotten used to.

A line of it dotted the right side of her jaw, ending on her chin. Another patch of damaged skin was right on her nose.

Finrod had touched one of his fingers to the tip of her nose, after the frostbite had started to heal. He had been grinning at her. He had said it looked funny, like a child who had eaten so messily she had gotten sauce on her nose. How angry she had gotten at that. She had stomped away from her idiotic brother, who made jokes rather than taking seriously her concern about the scarring.

She had been the idiot, back then. She had thought she was being mocked. Little Artanis, Princess of the Noldor, the only spoiled daughter and the last child of another last child. Pampered her whole life, but never truly asked to take on great responsibilities, not when she had all her older relatives to do it for her.

Galadriel had never known what suffering was before the Helcaraxë. She had been given duties, as was fit of the Princess, but Finrod had been the one to lead the Arafinwëan faction. The burden he had carried had been heavier than any other’s save for Fingolfin. He had feared his sister would lose part of her nose to the cold, like many others before. He had not been tried to mock her, only to bring back some laughter that all of them had needed.

Poor Finrod. He hadn’t been raised to be a leader, either, despite being the firstborn. His life had been carefree and happy, and then all of a sudden he had had to lead a whole army and make sure his younger siblings fared well, too. And through it all, he had always tried to keep a smile on his face, even when his lips were so cracked they bled at being pulled that way.

Galadriel traced the scars with her fingers. More marks, of the same kind, covered her hand as well. She had lost of the feeling in the tip of her index finger.

She thought of how she would look now, had the frostbite left her with more than just scars. So many people had lost fingers, ears, even entire limbs to the cold. If the damage had been more extensive, now she would miss her index finger almost entirely, and the middle and ring one would be lacking the last knuckle. She shivered as she had shivered back then, struggling to get the blood flowing properly again.

Her brother had been less lucky. Angrod hadn’t been able to warm himself enough, had cursed and gritted his teeth as his fingers had begun to become purple and black with gangrene. He had kept trying to fix them, until his wife, grim faced, had helped him find a healer for the amputation.

Galadriel hadn’t been there to see it happen. She and Aegnor had taken Orodreth with them, away from the scene. Their nephew had known what was happening, because it was a common occurrence. In his scared eyes was too much knowledge for a boy who had not yet reached adult height. Despite how aware he was, no one wanted him to be where he could hear his own father scream.

They had sat in a far corned of the camp, Aegnor trying to rope Orodreth into conversation while the boy stared morosely down at his own hands.

Kind, sweet Aegnor. There had been a time, after the air had begun to warm again, when Galadriel had hated him. Out of the four of them, he had been the only sibling to leave the ice whole and unblemished. No lost parts, no scars. Unfair.

She was ashamed now to remember it. Her old pride had still not been filed down enough, her heart had been so full of pain and anger that she had not known what to do with it. She was glad now, that for all the suffering Aegnor had to endure, at least he had been spared that.

A thin line ran on her neck and shoulders, until it reached a bigger spot right under her collarbone. Her mother had given her a pendant, before she had left. One night Galadriel had forgotten to take it off before sleeping, and it had ended up freezing against her skin. Taking it off had been torture.

She didn’t know where that necklace had ended up to. She was sure she had not had it in Beleriand. Lost in the Helcaraxë, most likely, as so many other things had been.

Pity. She would have liked a memento from her parents, one other than that mark.

Another scar was on her hip. She couldn’t see it well, not without turning around a little. A reminder that if she decided to keep a hidden dagger on her person, then she shouldn’t have it against her bare skin.

Her room in Lothlórien was warm. Celeborn made sure it always was. He knew how she hated the cold, had known ever since that first winter they had spent together in Doriath, when she would run from the snow as if it were arrows. He always did his best to make sure she was always comfortable.

Yet, Galadriel felt as if she were freezing. She wanted to reach over, grab her clothes, but she knew that would not change anything. The cold was a memory she had evoked herself, and some fabric would not help her chase it away.

It still was not as cold as she had been for those long, unending years, surrounded by ice and dark, when lighting a fire was a struggle and people died at the hands of beasts they had tried to hunt for their fur.

Her arms wrapped around herself. They said the Noldor had fire in their fëar, and that was true, but her own fire seemed to extinguish whenever she allowed her thoughts to go back to the Helcaraxë.

It had broken people who had crossed it. One could have seen it on her face, and Angrod’s mutilated hand, and in how Orodreth had always looked underfed for as long as he had been alive.

However, flesh wounds were only the most superficial. Worse than those had been the permanent frown on her uncle’s brow, the hardened edges of Angrod’s temper and the sadness in Aegnor’s smiles, and that haunted look Finrod had when he thought no one could see it. The ice had crept into their spirits, biting and eating them as it had with their bodies.

Galadriel had walked out of it and unto green grass with her head held stubbornly high, wearing an armor made out of pride and wielding a sword of words that were as sharp as broken glass. Or cracked ice, perhaps.

“ _Refusing to admit how frail you are will not make you stronger, child. The ice may be as unyielding as you try to be, but it is also brittle,_ ” Melian had told her once, staring into her being with those eyes blacker than the Void.

She had been right. Artanis, daughter of Arafinwë, had not only been famous for her beauty, but for her strength as well, both of body and of spirit. Her foresight had not warned her of places where all that strength would not have mattered, places where she would be reduced to helplessness. She still remembered the first time she had seen someone freeze to death, and she had known that could have been her fate as well, and that she would not have been able to fight the cold if it took her. 

She had not wanted to hide behind her parents since she had been a child, but in that moment she had wished for nothing more than for their arms around her, shielding her from a world that had turned harsher and uglier than she had ever been prepared for.

B ut of course, her parents had not been there. They were safe in Tirion, where she could not return to.

Her uncle would have comforted her, if she had asked. So would have her brothers and her cousins. They would have gladly put aside whatever they were doing to try and cheer her up.

She had not asked. She had turned angry at herself, because she was a Princess, and she was strong, and she could not let people down by being weak. Her pride would have never allowed her to, and at that time it had been the only thing she had left.

It had not been weakness, she knew now. There were things that would break anyone, no matter who they were. She had felt small and powerless because not one of the Children of Il ú vatar would have been capable of fighting against the power the Helcaraxë held.

She still had to remind herself of that. As she was now, Galadriel would never blame anyone for carrying the scars left by such a place. Still, part of her screamed that she had to be stronger, harder, to just leave the past in the past.

In the long centuries, she had done her best to hide it all. Only a few people had been able to see the pain through her barriers. Her brothers, who had always known how to read her better than anyone else. Melian, too, because nothing could be hid from her.

The physical scars, those she had perhaps hidden even better. Almost no one was left in Middle Earth who knew of them.

S he perceived Celeborn’s presence long before he even entered the room. She fought not to redress herself. She was not ashamed of her nudity in front of her husband, she never had been, but right now she was exposed in a way even he did not see often.

“I felt that you were troubled,” he said, walking up to her.

“By my own making,” she replied.

He stood behind her, his eyes meeting hers in the mirror. “Do you wish me to help you cross the ice?”

He had done it before, when the memories were too strong, too overwhelming. He did not have the gift for minds that Galadriel had, but through their marriage bond it was easy for him to reach out to her and take her back to these shores. More than once he had seen with her eyes memories of things he had mercifully never lived.

Galadriel shook her head.  “No. I only need some warmth.”

“Then you shall have it,” he said, wrapping his arms around her middle.

His body was solid, strong, its heat truer than the cold still seeping through her mind. His fëa danced against hers. He had the gentle starlight of the Sindar in him, not the fierce flames of the Noldor, and that was good. Lukewarm things were a better treatment than hot ones, when frostbite was involved.


End file.
